Some scales finally fall from the FB-eyes

The FBI has cut off contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism. The break occurred last summer when federal prosecutors were preparing for a second trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).

CAIR and its chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, were named un-indicted co-conspirators in that case. Moreover, both Ahmad and CAIR’s current national executive director, Nihad Awad, were revealed on government wiretaps as having been active participants in early Hamas-related organizational meetings in the United States. Hamas, of course, is designated by our government as a foreign terrorist organization, and it has been illegal since 1995 to provide support to it within the United States.

Until cutting off contacts with CAIR, the FBI had worked with that outfit and its state chapters to address Muslim community concerns about the potential for hate crimes and other civil liberty violations in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Such “hate crimes” and “civil liberties violations,” to the extent they may exist, hardly warrant the attention of the FBI, as opposed to local authorities. And they certainly cannot justify collaborating with an organization that everyone who follows these matters knows or should know was, in the words of an FBI agent who testified during the HLF trial, is a “front group.” It’s astonishing that it took the second trial of HLF to bring the FBI to its senses.

The FBI officials who decided to collaborate with CAIR should be held to account. But this is one Bush administration scandal that will not, I suspect, draw any interest from the Democratic Congress.

Via Diana West, who notes that five Republican members of Congress have warned colleagues to “think twice” before meeting with representatives of CAIR. The five are Sure Myrick, Pete Hoekstra, John Shedegg, Trent Franks, and Paul Broun.